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We did not plan anything,'' said U.S. captain Fred Couples. "But I think it worked out awesome for everybody involved to have Adam and Tiger play. As we said all along, they are still very good friends, and I think it's an exciting match.'' ( Callaway FT-iZ Driver ) And yet, Couples could have avoided such a match. Unlike the Ryder Cup, where the captains lay out their order of play not knowing what the other side will do, the Presidents Cup has the captains alternate placing players on the board. When International captain Greg Norman put South Koreans Kyung-tae Kim and Y.E. Yang in the fifth group and had yet to place Scott and Choi, Couples could have put Woods and Stricker against Kim and Yang. He held them out, meaning Woods and Scott would be in the same group. "I'm sure Freddie and I, everybody, we want to put this behind us,'' Norman said. "It's a dead issue as far as we're concerned. There's no animosity between any of the players or any of the issues that have taken place. I know it's good fodder. People like to talk about it in the media. But from our perspective, it's dead and gone, and we would like to keep Callaway FT-iZ Driver that way going forward.'' And yet, Norman, without prompting, brought it up in the news conference where the pairings were announced. And he said it was best to get such a matchup out of the way. "I just think that in the situation and in the best spirit of the competition for the tournament, there's obviously a lot of speculation and intensity from the people in this room here that it could take place,'' Norman said. "We talked about it and ... if we had to diffuse anything and just get this thing over and done with, wouldn't you rather have it sooner than later. Because I personally wouldn't have wanted to be sitting down at the singles (Sunday) and everybody is playing a really tight match and it comes down to the last group or the second to last group, and all of this pressure is coming on because it's the first time the two met.'' When Williams blasted Woods following Scott's Callaway FT-iZ Driver at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, such a grouping was always going to be the subject of attention, whenever it happened. Williams turned up the heat two weeks ago when he made disparaging comments with racial implications at a caddie banquet in China -- comments that were meant to be in fun but led to calls for his firing or severe punishment. There had been some thought Woods and Scott would play together at last week's Australian Open in Sydney, but it didn't happen, with both players attempting to downplay the situation and move on. Although neither player was available Wednesday, Scott had said earlier he had no problem with such a matchup. "Absolutely, it's probably inevitable in these events,'' said Scott, who is ranked seventh in the world. "I've played Callaway FT-iZ Driver him before. You know, it's going to be a tough point to win like every other point. But that's the goal to go and try to get a point out of it.'' Woods had downplayed the possibility, thinking ahead more to a Sunday singles showdown. But it is hard to envision a 14-time major champion, now ranked 50th in the world, shying away from such a challenge.
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